"If plants don't exist, we don't exist"
"If plants don't exist, we don't exist. It's that simple. They feed, clothe, medicate, and shelter us. They are everything to us, and we are nothing to them. If humans stopped existing the natural world would flourish, but if all the plants disappeared we'd disappear too." - Georgina Reid, Founder end Editor of the magazine Wonderground.
How was your love for plants born?
"I think I was born with love for plants, it has always been a natural thing to me. Plants have been in my life for as long as I can remember. I grew up on a farm in central New South Wales, Australia. We had a huge garden and my childhood was spent in it - following my mum around the garden and helping her, building cubby-houses, playing with my siblings, climbing trees. It was a wonderful time. My father was a farmer and my mother a horticulturalist and a farmer. I grew up immersed in the landscape! I found out recently that my name 'Georgina' means farmer, or 'tiller of the earth.' Appropriate, I think! When I visited Monet’s garden a few years ago I wasn’t prepared for the overwhelming beauty of the water lily pond and was completely taken aback by it. It was just so incredibly beautiful. I stood there looking at the pond with tears streaming down my face. It was one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen.”
Tell us a little bit about your online magazine: Wonderground?
"The importance of plants and nature is immense, yet all too often we forget to see and understand the inextricable links between their life and ours. This is one of the reasons why I started Wonderground – to explore and celebrate these connections in the hope that more people will take plants and their importance seriously.”
This is a magazine we fell for the moment we stumbled across it, it is like no other plant magazine, we find it includes plants in our life not dividing them into its own territory where one can often feel a bit left outside trying to look in.
You start to feel a sense of belonging and a curiousity to get to know our friends, the plants, like any other living creature in our neighborhood. Just listen to these words by Georgina Reid, it's like pure poetry on beauty and change: "Winter is winding up and the magnolias are flowering, spectacular as usual, against a backdrop of bare branches. Soon the blooms will fall and bright green leaves will take their place. The jasmine, hiding in the shadows until a few days ago, has just taken centre stage, its heady scent carrying the whispers of a warmer world on the breeze".
Each monthly issue evolves around a theme like: Play, Ephemeral, Surprise, Woman, themes you don't very often connect with plant magazines, (don't miss the story about the remarkable Trisha Dixon, what a woman!) Not only is Georgina a landscape designer and founder /editor of The Planthunter, she's also running workshops which are wildly interesting: Fabric Dyeing with waste and weed.
What is your thoughts on climate change?
"I swing between terror and hope when I think about climate change. Someone wrote recently saying that the most tragic thing about what we humans are doing to the earth is the lack of a sense of tragedy. We seem to be charging so blindly in the wrong direction and it seems like no-one is willing to do anything to change things. I find it very scary but then I think it's really important to act with a grounding in hope, not cynism."
Can you please explain the importance of plants to us?
“If plants don't exist, we don't exist. It's that simple. They feed, clothe, medicate, and shelter us. They are everything to us, and we are nothing to them. If humans stopped existing the natural world would flourish, but if all the plants disappeared we'd disappear too.”
Do you have any future projects you would like to tell us about?
"Besides working fulltime with the magazine I am also a landscape designer and columnist for others like The Design Files and Green Magazine.
We have just released our book called The Planthunter Truth, Beauty, Chaos and Plants in the US.
My ongoing project, and labour of love is Wonderground. I've got a few little Planthunter projects up my sleeve at the moment but it's too early to say too much. Watch this space!"
What makes you happy?
"So much! Being amongst trees, working in the garden, sharing food with wonderful people. Connection, truth, and beauty. These three things make me very happy indeed".
We are very happy to have found Wonderground, as plants lovers the magazine has given us a whole new perspective on Life with plants.
All images copyright Wonderground, follow on Instagram.
